Articles

Sony BURANO Camera Report

Burano, Italy is s a 45-minute vaporetto ride from Piazza San Marco in Venice to the north end of the Lagoon. Buildings are painted in beautifully bright colors that could work as an on-location color chart.  Burano is known for its seafood. Try the risotto de gò, but better to taste it in a Burano restaurant than try to catch the spiny grass goby (gò) fish yourself.

BURANO is the new camera from Sony. Its Full Frame 8.6K sensor can capture every nuance and color painted on the houses of Burano island. BURANO, the camera, is the latest addition to the Sony Cinema Line.

With in-body image stabilization and in-camera variable ND filters, BURANO is unique, ergonomic, and extremely mobile. BURANO could fit in a backpack on a documentary about the Venetian Lagoon. BURANO might also work as a companion camera to its larger sibling, VENICE.  Let’s take a tour in this BURANO Report. Most of it is also in the September 2023 Edition of FDTimes.

Download the free 40-page BURANO REPORT PDF read more…

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SmallHD Factory Tour

Imagine the inducements to visit SmallHD in Cary, North Carolina. Haute cuisine and haute technology, not in that order. For sure, we’re here to explore the high technology of SmallHD.

It’s an easy 2-hour flight from New York’s newly renovated La Guardia Airport to Raleigh-Durham. You’re in Research Triangle territory and the campuses of Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, and NC State University. Apple, Google, Toyota, IBM, Cisco, Amazon, Epic Games, Qualcomm and Red Hat are among the many high-tech companies neighboring high-tech SmallHD. read more…

Cooke S8/i T1.4 Full Frame Primes

New Cooke S8/i Full Frame Primes arrive in response to requests from cinematographers, camera operators, focus pullers and rental houses for smaller, lighter and faster Full Frame lenses.

Cooke S8/i Primes have a maximum aperture of T1.4. In comparion, Cooke S7/i Full Frame Primes open to T2.0. Not only are S8/i faster, they are also lighter and smaller than most contemporary Cooke lenses. S8/i have a 104 mm front diameter. S7/i have a 110 mm front diameter, as do the 35mm format S4/i and S5/i. It gets even more interesting when you hear that the S8/i series were designed and built using only spherical elements. They do not contain aspheres. read more…

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Configuring KOMODO

Like a Lonely Planet geeky guidebook, not as amusing as Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad, less strenuous than Survivor, here is a quirky travel guide of a RED KOMODO’s journey to Film and Digitial Times. The accessories and methods listed here are not comprehensive. In fact, they are the result of things that happened to be shipped, arrived and tried.  (This article first appeared in FDTimes Aug 2021 Issue 109, pages 32-44.)

Download the PDF (2 MB). read more…

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Sony VENICE 2 Report – older version

Four years and nine days after the original VENICE camera first launched five miles from Venice Beach, at Sony Pictures Culver City, VENICE 2 arrives in 6K and 8K. Except for a completely flat base with big air vents, they look very similar to the original VENICE. The design is clean and understated.

Not understated is the performance of this camera. Sixteen stops of exposure latitude retain highlights and reveal shadow detail. Skin tones are smooth and gentle. Images are elegant, natural, with a quality that seem almost tactile and impossibly three-dimensional.

If you have used the original VENICE, the learning curve is almost instantaneous. This is a familiar friend.

Download the free 64-page VENICE 2 Special Report (8 MB PDF) by FDTimes. 

SUBSCRIBERS: Download the high resolution 64-page VENICE 2 Special Report (22 MB PDF) by FDTimes.  read more…

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Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K Report

This Special Report about the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K camera is compiled from several editions of FDTimes. It is a free, printable, 36-page 11 MB PDF download.

The Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K costs less than $10K. It dares to defy a typical engineering riddle—pick any four of six: quality, resolution, easy data wrangling, size, weight, cost. Incredibly, URSA 12K gives you all six.

URSA 12K is a serious camera now shooting seriously stellar Super35 images at an astonishing 79.6 Megapixels per frame (12,288 x 6480) up to 75 fps in 2.39:1 (2.4:1), among many other aspect ratios, frame rates and resolutions. read more…

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SIGMA fp 2.00 Update

The critics at Cahiers du Cinema espoused a new vocabulary for film students to memorize in the following years: auteur, the director as author and le caméra stylo, writing with the camera as if it were a pen. Actually, a lot of this theory was just that: theory. There was, of course, an entire crew around the camera, behind the author and the pen and the talented cinematographers who liberated the camera from its fixed tripod.

It has been said, at times ironically, that the new wave owed much to the fact that you could avoid pesky Parisian film permits by shooting without a tripod. Nevertheless, Truffaut, Godard, Decaë, Coutard and company would have wept with joy had the SIGMA fp, no larger than a pack of Gauloises, arrived 60 years earlier.

The SIGMA fp camera is the embodiment of an entirely new and  liberated camera, an auteur’s stylo. SIGMA CEO Kazuto Yamaki called it “a deconstructed camera that allows for free and flexible styles that adapt to any genre. It is a camera for the next new wave.”

And now, SIGMA fp gets firmware update 2.00 —sort of like a cinematic spa rejuvenation. It is significant. Read all about it here. read more…

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Canon EOS C300 Mark III Report Reprint

Here is a standalone reprint of the Canon EOS C300 Mark III and CINE-SERVO 25-250 Special Report from FDTimes April 2020.

This is a free, printable 10 MB PDF download. read more…

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Cooke Tour 2020

This was my 4th tour of Cooke Optics in Leicester, England. The factory has come a long way since previous visits in 2006, 2009 and 2013. It is now a state-of-the-art, modern facility with clean rooms, the latest machines, and many more technicians. As Les Zellan described it, “The glass manufacturing area is cleaner and neater and there are many…… continue reading >

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Canon Sumire Prime Lenses

Here’s an FDTimes Special Report on Canon Sumire Prime lenses. Download the PDF.

Canon Sumire Prime lenses with PL mounts arrive just before NAB 2019, eight years into the  impressive Cinema EOS evolution. These lenses are an inevitable sequel in Canon’s “episodic series” of more than 140 million lenses, including EF, EF-S and Cinema EOS lenses. Canon’s cine lenses have been largely centered on  producing a broad range of Super 35mm zoom lenses. The recent flurry of interest in Full Frame for cine spurred Canon to create a contemporary set of prime lenses with PL mounts and a unique, esthetically pleasing look.

Our special report begins with a quick review of Canon cinema lenses and Cinema EOS developments, and then moves to in-depth interviews with the lens designers and planners, a visit to Canon’s Utsunomiya factory to see how these lenses are made, and much more. read more…

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ARRI ALEXA Mini LF – Large Format

Here’s the new little camera from ARRI that shoots big pictures.  It’s ARRI’s latest addition to their large-format camera system. This is what many cinematographers were asking for: Large Format, lighter, smaller, modular. ARRI ALEXA Mini LF is quintessentially an ALEXA LF stuffed into the body of a Super35 ALEXA Mini. It uses the same large format CMOS sensor (36.70 x 25.54 mm). To picture the engineering involved, imagine unloading the entire contents of your 22-foot long camera truck and squeezing almost everything inside a BMW X3. ALEXA Mini LF’s carbon fiber body plus LPL lens mount weighs a mere 2.6 Kg.  How convenient—that’s the same size and weight (about 5.7 lb) as the ubiquitous Maß (1-liter beer mug) at Oktoberfest. Read the full 22-page FDTimes Report. read more…

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Sony VENICE V2.0 FDTimes Special Report (PDF)

Download the latest free FDTimes Sony VENICE Special Report.
Includes all the firmware and hardware updates for V2.0 as of August 8, 2018. 140 page PDF.

includes: VENICE Version 2 Firmware Update, Tether, Formats; Travel Guide to VENICE; VENICE PL and E-mount; VENICE: Modular and User-Swappabe Sensor Block; Built-in Optical ND Filters; RAW & Internal Recording; Outfitting VENICE; VENICE Full Frame and Super35 Formats; VENICE Roadmap, Specs, Dimensions; and lots more. read more…

ZEISS Supreme Primes Special Report (PDF)

FDTimes Factory Tour and Special Report about the new ZEISS Supreme Prime lenses. Download 44-page 11MB (high rez) PDF.  ZEISS Supreme Primes cover a FULL FORMAT image area up to 46.3 mm diagonal. They are incredibly small, lightweight and fast. The focus barrel has a unique, advanced square helical thread that is as smooth as cams and even more rugged. There are 13 lenses planned so far. read more…

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Sony VENICE Special Report – April 2018 (PDF)

Updated Sony VENICE Special Report – April 2018 Will be updated again in June 2018 at Cine Gear Expo Download 116-page report:

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Canon EOS C700 FF

Download the Film and Digital Times Camera Report —  4.5 MB PDF. Canon introduces a new Full Frame Cinema Camera. This is Full Frame democratized, FF for all. The Canon EOS C700 FF has a new 38.1 x 20.1 mm (43.1 mm Ø) Full Frame, 18.69 megapixel (5952 x 3140) sensor. Pixel size is 6.4 x 6.4 μm. The EOS C700 FF is aspirational Full Frame at an affordable price. It will be especially attractive for independent features, commercials and many other productions. EOS C700 FF records Full Frame RAW, ProRes and XF-AVC and comes with either Canon locking EF mount or PL. read more…

ARRI Large Format Camera System (PDF)

This is a standalone, 64-reprint of the ARRI Large Format Special Report from FDTimes February 2018 Issue 86. Download 9 MB PDF here. ARRI ALEXA LF Why Large Format? Stephan Schenk, Marc Shipman-Mueller Klemens Kehrer, Achim Oehler, Thorsten Meywald Building an ALEXA LF ARRI Signature Primes Signature Prime Lens Manufacturing New LPL Mount ALEXA LF Test by Matias Boucard ALEXA LF Dimensions ALEXA……

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Manfrotto Manufacturing Tour

Lino Manfrotto was a photo journalist, based in Bassano del Grappa, Italy. He worked for Il Gazzettino and Il Giornale di Vicenza and also did industrial and advertising photography. By the late 1960s, he realized that his photo equipment was cumbersome, heavy and slow. There were many studio lights on the market, but Lino saw that they neglected the basic necessities. So, with the help of a colleague, Lino made his first product: a lightweight and a rugged lighting stand that extended high enough to be practical. Download our 11-page PDF Report of the Factory Visit to Manfrotto Manufacturing in Feltre. read more…

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FUJIFILM Factory Tour (PDF)

Here is a 20-page PDF preview of the cover story in April-June FDTimes Issue 81-82. It’s a report on the new Fujinon MK 18-55 T2.9 zoom, the imminent 50-135 T2.9, and a tour of the factory where they are made, along with X-T2 and GFX still cameras. How does FDT manage to get inside various companies’ highly sensitive chambers of secrets? Like set etiquette, there are several important factory-visit commandments, thou-shalt-nots, and don’t-becauses. Thou shalt not trip over anything or break stuff. Don’t slow down the assembly line. Don’t ask dumb questions. Don’t take pictures of things they tell you not to. Submit all photos for review lest you accidentally photograph a particularly proprietary process or part. read more…

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New Canon 70-200 Cine Zoom: EF, AF, AE, IS

Exactly a year ago at NAB 2016, Canon introduced a new cine lens  for Super 35. The Compact Servo 18-80 mm T4.4 (CN-E18-80mm T4.4 L IS KAS) EF-mount zoom was a compelling hybrid that combined the best attributes of cine and still photography. Three different lines of Canon lenses intersect in the design: more than 60 L-Series EF lenses for professional still photography, Cinema Zooms with manual focus/iris/zoom barrels (15.5-47, 30-105, 14.5-60, 30-300 mm), and Cine-Servo (17-120, 50-1000 mm) zooms. Now, a year later at NAB 2017, Canon’s Compact Servo family gets a new sibling. The Canon 70-200 mm T4.4 (CN-E70-200mm T4.4 L IS KAS S) EF-mount zoom covers longer, essential focal lengths. And so, with just two lightweight, compact, affordable, high performance lenses, you can cover any angle from wide 18 mm to long 200 mm. An accessory 2x extender gets you to 400 mm. read more…

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SIGMA Cine Full Frame T2 14 & 135 mm

SIGMA Corporation adds two more cine lenses at NAB. Covering incredibly wide and extremely tight,  the new cine lenses in  the SIGMA FF High Speed Prime Line are 14mm T2 FF and 135mm T2 FF. Download 4-page FDTimes PDF article, including visit to SIGMA Headquarters and interview with lens designers. There are now seven prime lenses in the SIGMA FF High Speed Prime Line:  14, 20, 24, 35, 50, 85, and 135mm. All these cine lenses come with PL, EF and E-mounts. (Only the 24-35 T2.2 FF Zoom lacks a PL mount option: it comes in EF and E-mount only.) SIGMA offers a mount conversion service. read more…

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